The Helmsley Cancer Centre, designed by Canadian architect Farrow Partners with Rubinstein Ofer Architects, has been recognized with multiple accolades from the International Academy of Design & Health and European Healthcare Design Congress.
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The Shaare Zedek Helmsley Cancer Centre, designed by Canadian architect Farrow Partners with Rubinstein Ofer Architects, has received multiple international awards.
The project, which is Israel’s new flagship centre for oncology, housing patient assessment and treatment and physical, psychological, social, and spiritual care services, recently received four of seven awards at the 13th World Congress of The International Academy of Design & Health, at the Politecnico di Milano. These include the International Health Building Award, Salutogenic Building Award, and the Interior Design Award. Additionally, the London-based, European Healthcare Design Congress at the Royal College of Physician awarded the Helmsley Cancer Centre the prestigious global Design for Health and Wellness Award at the organization’s 10th congress in June 2024.
The facility, a 7500-square-meter center is part of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, one of the country’s most prominent health organizations, is made up of the first phase of Farrow Partners’ master plan to expand the SZMC campus from one million square feet to over six million square feet and 2,200 beds.
In terms of the design, it aims to address the emotional needs of patients and families by offering a spatial dialogue between person and place, promote vitality and instill hope. It also aims to employ neuro-wellness interventions to enhance the medical experience.
Along with housing state-of-the-art treatment facilities, the Helmsley Cancer Centre leverages scientifically-grounded, salutogenic, and multi-sensory neuro-wellness design strategies to improve the full range of clinical and human outcomes based on concepts emerging at the intersection of architecture and neuroscience. These include environmental enrichment, embodiment, and embreathment. All of these design strategies, seen as non-invasive therapeutic treatments, were pre-approved, and monitored by the hospital’s Medical Ethics Board.
With two storeys of outpatient services and educational spaces above ground, the centre’s main treatment areas are arranged around an interior courtyard atrium that terraces down across three subterranean storeys to a garden. This approach aims to resemble the traditional courtyard house typology of Jerusalem. Daylit by large windows and a twenty-four metre skylight overhead, these subterranean garden terraces are layered with wood members that grow vertically from the 165-square meter garden before bending to cloak the ceiling.
Designed by a team from six countries across three continents, the 16-metre timber exoskeleton is one of the world’s most complex timber fabrications to date. The assembly consists of 715 individual European larch glulam members and 560 square metres of spruce cross laminate timber roof panels, totalling 356 cubic metres of timber, all tied together by 2,700 concealed steel connectors.
Elements including tightly double-curved beams at over a metre in depth support the outer edges of the roof’s 11-metre cantilevers. The embodied carbon storage reflects the equivalent carbon produced by 1,600 cars driving daily for a year.
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